Russia, Venezuela Restructuring Debt

Russia and Venezuela will finalize a debt restructuring deal for Caracas by Nov. 15, the TASS news agency cited Venezuela’s ambassador to Russia as saying on Sunday, Reuters reported. “We are working on the document,” TASS cited Ambassador Carlos Rafael Faria Tortosa as saying. “We expect that we will need a month to conclude it and that by Nov. 15 this work should be finished.” The RIA news agency cited Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov as saying on Saturday an outline agreement had been reached, but more time was needed to complete talks. Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft, is buying a growing volume of Venezuelan crude and other products while extending loans to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government. Rosneft said in August it had made around $6 billion in pre-payments to the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and had no immediate plans to make any further advance payments soon. Both sides also discussed vital issues of Russian-Venezuelan strategic partnership and also the implementation of mutually beneficial projects.